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The Civilization at a Crossroads: Constructing the Paradigm Shift
Abstract
Abstract:
The book addresses the broad issue of sustainability of our civilization and seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion of what many see as its systemic crisis. There is a broad agreement that new creative ideas, initiatives, and solutions are essential for dealing with the current problems. However, despite this recognition, we still know very little about the process of creation and how it works. As a result, our civilization fails to harness the enormous creative potential of humanity. This failure, the book argues, is the main source of our current problems—languishing economy, deteriorating environment, continued violence, the deficit of democracy, and the lack of new fundamental breakthroughs in science. It examines some of these problems and demonstrates the connection between them and our failure to embrace the process of creation. The book offers a perspective that sheds light on the process of creation. It pays special attention to the theoretical contributions of Jean Piaget and the ongoing discussions of knowledge production that help us understand better how the process of creation works. The central argument of the book is that in order to solve our current problems and ensure the sustainability of our civilization well into the future we must embrace the process of creation and make it the central organizing principle of our social practice. Finally, the book provides an outline of the principal changes that the adoption of the new social practice organized around the process of creation will involve.
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More Info: You may download this book at: https://glasstree.com/shop/catalog/the-civilization-at-a-crossroads_854/
Research Interests: Social Change, Politics, Sustainability (Organisational Strategy), and Knowledge Production
... Its contribution is particularly important in this day and age when our economy puts premium on knowledge production and creativity; our economy is increasingly about knowledge production. 136 Education is one important sphere of our civilization that directly relates to knowledge. Traditionally, storage and dissemination of the existing knowledge has been the main preoccupation of education. ...
The subject of this study is inflation—a problem that has plagued America and the world over the last several decades. Despite a rich trove of scholarly studies and a wide range of tools developed to deal with inflation, we are nowhere near a solution of this problem. We are now in the middle of the inflation that threatens to become a stagflation or even a full recession; and we have no idea what to prevent this outcome.
This investigation explores the real source of inflation. Tracing the problem of inflation to production, it finds that inflation is not a phenomenon intrinsic to economy; rather, it is a result of inefficiencies and waste in our economy. The investigation leads to a conclusion that the solution of the problem of inflation is in achieving full efficiency in production. Our economic production is a result of the evolution that is propelled by the process of creation. In order to end economic inefficiencies, we should model our economic practice on the process that preceded production and has led to its emergence. In addition, the study will outline ways in which our economic theory and practice must be changed to achieve full efficiency of our production. Finally, the study provides a critical overview of the current theories of inflation and remedies that are proposed to deal with it.
Key words: inflation, business cycle, recession, value creation, Keynesianism, neo-classical economics, evolution, and the process of creation.
... There is no rational justification, nor empirical support for this view. 29 Consciousness is not in any way primary to the process that has created it. ...
The field of consciousness studies has been an area of active research for well over a century. Perhaps more than any other field, it has proven to be a magnet for numerous disciplines: from philosophy and religion to neuroscience and psychology, to social sciences and more. Even quantum physics has claimed to offer important insights that explain the mystery of subjective experience. Today, consciousness studies are a thriving area of research with numerous theoretical perspectives to its credit. Yet the “hard problem” of subjective experience remains unsolved. There is still no general theory of consciousness that would synthesize the extensive aggregation of theoretical perspectives and empirical facts. The article offers an explanation for this obvious anomaly. It argues that the failure of one of the most active fields of inquiry is a result of the dominance of the anthropocentric tendency in consciousness studies. The article starts by offering a critical overview of the prevalent theoretical approaches in the field. It tries to show the pervasive influence of anthropocentrism. The article also outlines a new perspective that escapes this insidious influence. The focus of the new perspective is not on specific functions and aspects of consciousness, as in all currently dominant approaches, but on the process that has been involved in their formulation. The focus offers a possibility to view consciousness from the perspective that does not rely on mental constructs created by humans. The perspective also offers a critically informed point of observation that does not depend on human choices.
... There is no rational justification, nor empirical support for this view. 29 Consciousness is not in any way primary to the process that has created it. ...
The field of consciousness studies has been an area of active research for well over a century. Perhaps more than any other field, it has proven to be a magnet for numerous disciplines: from philosophy and religion to neuroscience and psychology, to social sciences and more. Even quantum physics has claimed to offer important insights that explain the mystery of subjective experience. Today, consciousness studies are a thriving area of research with numerous theoretical perspectives to its credit. Yet the “hard problem” of subjective experience remains unsolved. There is still no general theory of consciousness that would synthesize the extensive aggregation of theoretical perspectives and empirical facts.
The article offers an explanation for this obvious anomaly. It argues that the failure of one of the most active fields of inquiry is a result of the dominance of the anthropocentric tendency in consciousness studies. The article starts by offering a critical overview of the prevalent theoretical approaches in the field. It tries to show the pervasive influence of anthropocentrism. The article also outlines a new perspective that escapes this insidious influence. The focus of the new perspective is not on specific functions and aspects of consciousness, as in all currently dominant approaches, but on the process that has been involved in their formulation. The focus offers a possibility to view consciousness from the perspective that does not rely on mental constructs created by humans. The perspective also offers a critically informed point of observation that does not depend on human choices.
Key words: Consciousness, theories of consciousness, the “hard problem,” functions of consciousness, anthropocentrism, animal consciousness, equilibration/computation, and the process of creation.
... But there is more that is currently working against elite rule. This article has emphasizes several factors: the growing demands for inclusion and equality, economic changes that require enhancing innovation and creativity as the way to increase productivity, 96 the fragmentation among and within elites. ...
Elite rule has been dominant throughout much of the history of human civilization. It has survived numerous trials and tribulations. Many elites that have been prominent in the past have disappeared, but elite rule has survived as new elites have emerged to take place of the old. This remarkable endurance of elite rule against all adversities has given rise to the so-called "futility thesis"-a conviction that elite rule is inescapable and that all hopes to create a democracy based on equality and universal inclusion and empowerment is but a forlorn dream. This article disputes the "futility thesis." This thesis leads to an inevitable conclusion that exclusion cannot be eliminated. The article argues that the elimination of exclusion is not only possible but that it is necessary for sustaining our civilization. The fact that the demand for inclusion is prominent in the current political turmoil indicates that there is a growing realization of the need to end exclusion. In developing its thesis, the article addresses several problems that elite theory has failed to resolve, such as the relationship between elites and power, the origin of elites, and "elite circulation." It argues that the disappearance of elites will not diminish society's access to knowledge, skills, and expertise. On the contrary, inclusionary practices will only enhance this access. Finally, the article outlines new inclusionary practices in knowledge production, management, and leadership.
... These changes will bring more open, inclusive, and democratic relationship into our political systems and business organizations. 48 As a result, organizations that will implement such new practice will be able to achieve a steady and stable evolution and greater sustainability. ...
The climate change is one of the most contentious issues discussed in the public arena today. Environmental activists contend that the climate change is not an act of nature or God but is a result of human actions. Environmental critics do not see the degradation of the environment as merely a result of wrongheaded or misguided policies. Their critique goes much deeper. For many environmental activists, this degradation of reflects a fundamental flaw that is deeply rooted in our culture. They identify this flaw as anthropocentrism, or a worldview that assigns to humans and human values the primary place in the cosmic order. Their proposed solution is to reject this worldview and adopt a new egalitarian vision in which humans and the rest of nature will have equal value. This article agrees with the view that anthropocentrism presents a real problem for our civilization. However, it takes a much broader approach to this problem that goes beyond the critique of environmentalists. First, it sees that the source of anthropocentrism lies much deeper than the environmentalists think. The source is the pattern in human thinking that emerged when early humans began to walk the face of this earth. Early humans did not see the important role of the process of creation in the way they perceive, interpret, and represent reality. The article explains the importance of the process of creation in the way we think. The article sees the source of anthropocentrism in the failure to recognize the importance of the process of creation and in the way this failure affects our thinking. This failure has resulted in a view of reality that is limited, exclusionary, and ultimately subjective. This failure has left humans no choice but to view reality through the prism of mental constructs that they create, which is the main source of anthropocentrism. Also, environmentalists see the problem of anthropocentrism primarily in its relationship to the environment. This article emphasizes that anthropocentrism is a broad phenomenon that affect many areas of our life. Finally, the article examines major solutions that address the problem of anthropocentrism and offers their critique. It sees their principal common shortcoming in their exclusionary approach and outlines a new and inclusive approach.
The article discusses the issue of the debt crisis that is currently one of the sources of political conflict that poses a threat to economic, political, and social stability in the United States and the world. The article examines to roots of this crisis. It pays particular attention to the important role of collateral in economic activities. It also shows the connection between the debt and value creation as the raison d'etre of economic activities. Finally, the article shows the way toward the resolution of the debt crisis. It argues that the only way to prevent debt crises in the future is to make our economy efficient, i. e. one that fully utilizes all available resources for creating new and increasingly more powerful levels of organization that is essential for value production.
This chapter calls for critical reflection on the onto-political relations between mathematics, technics, and cultures in the context of the ecological and technological crises of modern Western civilization. The relations between a culture’s mathematic, technical practices, and metaphysical worldview are intertwined elements within different civilizational complexes, comprising the geo-cosmo-politics of the modern world order. Reflected in the posthuman and post-anthropocentric turns in the sciences and humanities, a variety of alternative ontologies of existence are emerging. As an intellectual field, the posthuman ontological turn is a bifurcated shift in the fundamental concepts and assumptions underlying the modern knowledge disciplines. The ontological turn has unsettled Western metaphysical concepts of nature and culture, calling the relations between mathematics and nature into question within an emerging historical problematic identified as the technoecological condition. I am exploring ways of overcoming the singular world ontology of modernity with a pluriversal ontological politics of knowledge and education. Ontological diversity is dependent upon technodiversity, while technodiversity is dependent upon renewed cosmological relations between technics and cultures. Mathematical knowledge practices are centrally about intervening in environments as well as providing metaphysical grounds for establishing truth. The technoecological condition involves the replacement of subject centered sense making with the environmentalization of sense, i.e., smart cities, ubiquitous computing and global media. Grounded in the mathematic of Western modernity, the process of cybernetization has concretized in world-wide systems of technological mediation that operate within sensory and intelligent environments. Biodiversity and technodiversity are being lost in an expanding mono-cultural technological civilizational complex. Underlying the production and consumption of cybernetic technologies are particular kinds of mathematics (i.e., symbolic, experimental, technological, computational), participating in multiple fields of knowledge, embedded in cultural-historical events, processes, concepts and presuppositions about the world. This modern metaphysical paradigm shift involves a change in the ontological relations between mathematics and technology, reflected in the hybrid reformations of computational mathematics and STEM education, i.e., biotechnology, artificial intelligence. An historical ontology of cultures and mathematics brings matter and meaning together, focusing on the material/ideological relations between mathematics, technics, cultures, and environments. Cosmotechnics is proposed to the knowledge disciplines to balance the cosmological relations between cultures, technics, and natures. We can learn to live within the limits of the earth system. From this recognition of the cosmo-ontological relations between the modern Western mathematic and modern technology, does ethnomathematics contribute to a project of producing technodiversity in a world propelled towards technological singularity? A multiple ontologies perspective, associated with the ontological turns in anthropology, sociology, geography, decoloniality, and philosophy of technology and media, contributes towards a pluriversal project of overcoming technological modernity that is neither fascist, nationalist, nor technocapitalist.
Today, the human future is thrown into question by our technological capacities. The convergence of new technologies (for example, biotechnology, robotics, informatics, and nanotechnology) in projects of controlling life has radically reconfigured our sense of the human condition, both through technological capacities already at our disposal and through emergent imaginations of what human futures are possible, desirable, and good. We have begun to achieve unprecedented capacities to manipulate not only our external environment but the internal environments of our bodies as well. In light of these emerging and anticipated capacities, questions about human progress, redemption, or demise are increasingly asked in relation to imagined technological futures (Tirosh-Samuel & Hurlbut, 2016: 5).
Our time is thus one in which it is urgent that the West—or what remains of it—analyze its own becoming, turn back to examine its provenance and its trajectory, and question itself concerning the process of decomposition of sense to which it has given rise (Nancy, 2008: 30).
The question that remains to be answered is what will be the fate of these indigenous ontologies and practices when confronting modern technology, which is the realization of naturalism? Or are these “practices” able to transform modern technology so that the latter acquires a new direction of development, a new mode of existence? This is one of the most crucial questions, since it is also about how to escape both colonialism and ethnocentrism (Hui, 2017b: 7).
KeywordsComparative metaphysicsTechnoecological conditionCyberneticsTranshumanismTechnodiversity
The pursuit of progress has been a distinct feature of civilization at least over the last three hundred years. Yet the appeal of progress is now in decline. Many attribute several major problems we face today to our relentless pursuit of progress, including the degradation of the environment and climate change, the growing gap between the rich and the poor, the increasing control of governments over the life of their citizens, social instability, economic decline, and much else. Widespread criticism has raised fundamental questions about progress that even relatively recently we would not dare to raise without risking our intellectual credibility. The intense questioning encourages, indeed necessitates, a revisiting of the theory and practice of our pursuit of progress. This article represents an attempt at reexamining some critical issues that are related to progress. There are several questions to be addressed in the following pages: Is progress really necessary? What fundamental purpose does it serve? Can our civilization survive without progressing? Does progress have roots in nature or is it merely a human fancy? In answering these questions, this article will explain the important relationship between our idea and practice of progress, on one hand, and nature, on the other. It will show that progress is not a human fancy; it has deep roots in the evolution of nature and the universe. Substantive criticisms should not only point to mistakes and flaws. They should also lead to alternatives. This article will conclude by outlining some fundamental principles to be used in reshaping our progressive practice. The main feature of this reformed practice, as argued in the pages that follow, should be the process of creation that plays a vital role in the survival and evolution of our universe. The failure to embrace and understand this process has generated major flaws that that continue to plague our pursuit of progress. The article will explain that the reason for this failure is not an accident but a necessary result of anthropocentrism that has dominated and continues to dominate our civilization. By using the process of creation as the main organizing principle of our theory and practice of progress will make possible to eliminate the main cause of our numerous problems with progress.
This contribution examines the current controversy over research productivity. There are two sides in this controversy. Using extensive data from several industries and areas of research, one side argues that research productivity is currently in decline. The other side disputes this conclusion. It contends that the data used in making this argument are selective and limited; they do not reflect the overall state of research. The conclusion that follows from this critique is that the indicators of research productivity we currently use are not reliable and do not warrant a definitive answer to the problem.
The article agrees that we need a new set of indicators in assessing research productivity. It proposes that we should look at global indicators related to knowledge production in general, rather than look at selective data that are inevitably limited in their scope. The article argues that the process of creation plays the essential role in knowledge production. Therefore, the perspective that uses the process of creation as its central organizing principle offers a unique and global view on the production of knowledge and makes a definitive resolution of the controversy possible. The article also outlines some steps for improving research productivity and realizing the full potential of the human capacity to produce knowledge.
Moral dimension is a characteristic feature of most transformative developments that have occurred in the course of human history. Moral outrage has fueled numerous upheavals, uprisings, and revolutions. Researchers have recognized the important role of moral outrage during periods of social and political change. However, they usually tend to explain it by social, political, or economic factors. They rarely trace this phenomenon to purely moral factors. This article argues that the primary source of moral outrage lies in the moral sphere-specifically, in the discrepancy between the widely recognized moral principles and the actual practice. The imperative of equality is arguably the most important and fundamental principle that underpins the existence of morality. The appeal of the imperative of equality transcends temporal and cultural boundaries. Yet despite this broad appeal, our social practice accepts, tolerates, and perpetuates inequality. This article calls this discrepancy the moral predicament. The article will analyze the factors that are involved in the making of the moral predicament. It will identify the source of the imperative of equality and will explain why this imperative has not been realized in practice. The article will also consider several relevant issues, such as the rise of consciousness and morality. Finally, the article will offer a perspective on how the problem of the moral predicament can be solved.
Hegel: A Very Short Introduction outlines Hegel's philosophy and provides a broad discussion of his ideas and major works. Many people regard Hegel's work as obscure and extremely difficult, yet his importance and influence are universally acknowledged. It can be argued that without Hegel neither the intellectual nor political developments of the last 150 years would have taken the path they did. His profound ideas led him to some conclusions that may seem bizarre. Despite this, there are arguments and insights in his work that retain their force even today. With perhaps the exception of Marx, no philosopher of the nineteenth or twentieth century has had as great an impact on the world as Hegel.
Few can imagine a world without telephones or televisions; many depend on computers and the internet as part of daily life. Without scientific theory, these developments would not have been possible. In this exceptionally clear and engaging introduction to philosophy of science, James Ladyman explores the philosophical questions that arise when we reflect on the nature of the scientific method and the knowledge it produces.
